131–140 of 705 posts
If you are looking for an alternative navigation app I can recommend giving Magic Earth a try. Simple, clear and free. Nice developers that answers your mail. It even supports Android Auto. https://www.magicearth.com
"Google Maps" is a misnomer. Call it "Google Business Search" or something similar, and the perceived problems disappear. Google Maps provides a small fraction of the functions of a real map. And this fraction does not even cover the fundamentals: Street names, landmarks/points of interest, being able to draw or create marks on the map, and perhaps making basic measurements. Its main view has marginally more informat…
At no point during this do I have to interact with alternative businesses or way points.
I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…
I recently watched this show on netflix called "The Billion Dollar Code" that went into the details about maps beginnings and other companies claim to the idea. It was pretty interesting.
I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…
What kills me is I'd easily pay 50~100 eur a month if Maps had to be non ad subsidized. This is to me Google's most everyday impacting product, and what makes the difference between me being stranded/lost or making it in time. The stories of people ending in a lake for blindly following directions are cheeky, but decent maps are just that important, and Google Maps, how flawed it can be, is currently the best for so…
I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…
I recently watched this show on netflix called "The Billion Dollar Code" that went into the details about maps beginnings and other companies claim to the idea. It was pretty interesting.
(I don't know to what extent the tech stack is shared between the two.)
I've felt that Apple Maps has been better than Google Maps in many ways for years now (although I still switch back and forth between them, seemingly at random, for no real reason, using each for about 50% of my map browsing). Finding street names seems to be a massive issue across all maps -- not just mobile, not just Apple and Google. One of the most important things to me when looking at a map can simply not exist…
Google maps might mark that a road has a lane, but Apple Maps delineates lane size, has better direction and turn markers, is able to pick up bike lanes, slow zones, speed bumps, the _kind_ of lane markers! (Double line, single, single + dash).
Also the bike routing on Apple Maps is saner too. Google Maps regularly attempts to route me down highways or arterial roads…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main reason degoogled android doesn’t work is because of the (terrible) design of the android location services and maps APIs. I’m not sure who that drives revenue for, though. I switched back to iPhone over this. I strongly prefer Here We Go to Apple Maps, and it is available on Android. (Open platform, my ass…)
Google play services API's are deliberately designed to be hard to reimplement by third parties. In the case of maps, the placeId of every business or POI is internal to Google, and no other provider can give you a map for a matching placeId. It's no accident.
> Why won't you show me the street name? I've been running into this a lot lately. No matter how much I zoom -- no street name. This is Mapping 101.
No, mapping 101 is showing me a scale. Without a scale it is a drawing not a map. A for everyone telling me I can enable it always in settings, I will answer that it still gets removed when you start navigation with 'Directions'. But I still agree street omission is pretty bad.
I wish there was some visual indication of the scale, other than a tiny line in the bottom right corner.
I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a somewhat new commuting cyclist, I've been apps built on top of OpenStreetMap, like OSMAnd. I hear good things about Komoot as well. Also, as a cyclist and a bit of nerd, it's fun to update OSM around my bike routes I know best.
Osmand should be on every single phone. It works when nothing else does including your cell connection. It's saved my butt a dozen times at this point.